In this book Henry Leutwyler documents the professional and private life of renowned Life magazine photographer Philippe Halsman (1906–79), who had a total of 101 Life covers to his name—more than any other photographer. Leutwyler first saw Halsman’s work as a teenager in an exhibition at the International Center of Photography in 1979; now, more than 40 years later, his fascination has finally found fruition. With his trademark approach, both forensic and imaginative, he teases out the meanings held within inanimate objects and how they reveal their owner’s personality. In close collaboration with the Halsman Archive, Leutwyler has photographed hundreds of objects belonging to Halsman—from his cameras to his glasses, from his passport to a range of letters (from Janet Leigh, Richard Avedon and Richard Nixon, to name but a few), from table-tennis bats and balls to a collection of jewel-like, paper-wrapped soaps from around the world—in the words of Halsman’s grandson Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, “magical evidence of a time that will never exist again.”
In this book I have attempted yet again to tell a story and draw a portrait, through one’s belongings. Objects talk. - Henry Leutwyler
